Texas Railroad History - Tower 2 - San Antonio
Crossing of the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio Railway and the San Antonio & Aransas Pass Railway
Tower 2 was located at the crossing of the San Antonio and Aransas Pass (SA&AP)
Railway and the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio (GH&SA) Railway in south
San Antonio. It was authorized for operation by the Railroad Commission of
Texas (RCT) as a 10-function/10-lever mechanical interlocker on October 9, 1902.
At the time, both railroads were owned by Southern Pacific (SP) but operated
separately. A year later, SP was forced to divest its ownership of the SA&AP
due to a court
ruling where SP's purchase of the SA&AP (eleven years earlier!) was found to be
unauthorized and anti-competitive. The reason for this lawsuit -- and why the State
of Texas waited a decade to bring it -- is part of the interesting history of the SA&AP.
The SA&AP had been chartered in 1884 by Uriah Lott to build from San Antonio
to Corpus Christi. It soon expanded into other areas of south and central Texas,
reaching Houston in 1888 and Waco in 1891. In 1886, Lott hired as Traffic
Manager a young man from Limestone County, Texas. Age 27, Benjamin Franklin
Yoakum had gotten his start in
railroads working on
a track gang for the International & Great Northern. He had moved up
rapidly to
become a land promoter for Texas rail lines owned by Jay Gould before moving to
the SA&AP. Within a year, he had helped Lott arrange for a town site to be laid out along
SA&AP tracks to
become the site for SA&APs yards. Lott was so enamored with Yoakum, he named the
town for him (Yoakum, Texas.)
When SA&AP went into bankruptcy in 1890, Yoakum was named by the court as one of
the receivers. When the receivership ended in 1892, Yoakum
became an executive for Santa Fe, leaving the newly restructured SA&AP to be
acquired by SP later that same year.
Yoakum stayed a few years with Santa Fe and continued his rise in railroad
management. By 1903, he had become the chief executive of the St. Louis San
Francisco (Frisco) Railway while also serving on the boards of other major
railroads, including as Chairman of Rock Island. To increase Frisco and Rock
Island traffic, Yoakum wanted to build tracks to the Rio Grande Valley to tap
its booming agricultural production which he would then ship north through his
various rail properties. The Valley only had rail service to Port Isabel on the coast near
Brownsville; there was no rail connection to the north. Yoakum was rightfully
concerned that SP would reach the Valley before he did since SA&AP already
had tracks as far south as the town of Alice, a little over 100 miles from the
Valley. Yoakum's nearest tracks were in Dallas!
Perhaps Yoakum had something up his sleeve? In 1903, eleven years after the
SA&AP had been acquired by SP, the State of Texas
sued SP to demand divestiture of the SA&AP. The State claimed the acquisition
was
in violation of Texas laws against anti-competitive railroad ownership. Was this
merely good fortune for B F Yoakum, or did his personal relationships with RCT
commissioners play a role? When the State won the lawsuit, the court ordered SP
to divest the SA&AP and guarantee the bonds that had been issued during SP
ownership. This created financial
uncertainty for the newly independent SA≈ selling new bonds to finance
construction to the Rio
Grande Valley would be difficult. SA&AP did build 36 miles south from Alice to Falfurrias in 1904, but
they went no farther. Meanwhile, Yoakum's newly chartered St. Louis, Brownsville
and Mexico (SLB&M) Railway started construction at Robstown
where materials could be shipped from the port of Corpus Christi via the Texas
Mexican Railway. From there he built south
to Brownsville in the Rio Grande Valley (reached in 1904) and north to
Algoa
(reached in 1906). At Algoa, a Santa Fe connection into Houston was negotiated,
effectively giving Yoakum control of the lucrative Rio Grande Valley
agricultural traffic. But Yoakum still had a big problem: when this traffic
reached Houston, he had no connecting railroad on which to send it out. Even
worse for Yoakum, SP's Houston & Texas Central rail line to Dallas would likely capture the
northbound traffic. So...in 1906, Yoakum began the next
phase of his plan to thwart SP...but that's a Tower 63 story!
In 1917, the Missouri Kansas Texas Railway funded a new railroad, the San
Antonio, Belt and Terminal (SAB&T) Railway, to provide switching services in San
Antonio including the vicinity of Tower 2. Documentation obtained from SP by
Carl Codney shows that a Statement Showing
Levers, Functions and Division of Expense at Interlocking Plant for Tower 2
(see below) was issued on September 1, 1917 to incorporate the SAB&T's new
tracks near Tower 2. The expense allocation
was 53% to GH&SA, 21% to SA&AP, and 26% to SAB&T, and there is no
indication that this ever changed after 1917. The document also
confirms the tower was operated and maintained by GH&SA.
Carl Codney Collection Documents
Above:
This image is the upper portion of the final tower expense allocation for Tower 2
showing the lever and function definitions. Although it is dated September 1,
1917, it was amended by typewriter as late as
January 26, 1920, shortly after it was revised to add
signals pertaining to the activation of the nearby "River Crossing
Interlocker", Tower 112, which began operation on
December 30, 1919. A final notation by hand shows that Tower 2 was "placed out
of service" on September 24, 1925; this was about six months after SP re-acquired the SA&AP.
The remaining controls were relocated to Tower 112
at that time. Below: The original Division of
Expense document for Tower 2, dated October 9, 1902 (its RCT authorization
date), shows amendments by hand many times over the years before it was
ultimately replaced by the 1917 document above. It shows the original expense
sharing was 54.5% GH&SA, 45.5% SA&SP, and that SA&AP operated the tower while
GH&SA maintained it. A typewritten notation was made for changes to SA&AP
distant signals on April 30, 1907. Notations by hand explain that the lever
distribution was revised on June 5, 1917 "account addition of levers to handle
GH&SA double track", and revised again on June 9, 1918 "account addition of
levers to handle crossing of SAB&T Ry." Apparently the above document was issued
on September 1, 1917 and both documents were maintained until entry of the June
6, 1918 changes for the SAB&T.
In the Transportation Act of 1920, Congress directed the Interstate Commerce
Commission (ICC) to promote and plan consolidation of U.S. railroads into a
limited number of "systems". The ICC responded by hiring economist William Z.
Ripley to develop a plan. The so-called "Ripley Plan" proposed that SP head one
of these systems, and that the SA&AP become part of it. On December 6, 1924, SP
filed an application with the ICC for authorization to obtain control of the
SA&AP. The State of Texas opposed the move, but was overruled by the ICC, which
granted SP's application. In March, 1925, the SA&AP was re-acquired by SP and leased
to the GH&SA. As noted above, Tower 2 was then closed in September. SP
eventually completed construction of the SA&AP line
from Falfurrias to the Valley, reaching McAllen in 1927. This ended SLB&M's
two-decade control of
Valley traffic. A. Tyrrell Kott adds..."As for Tower 2, it was identical to
Tower
3 in Flatonia. Both were built by the
San
Antonio & Aransas Pass at the same time. I have a poor
photo of it somewhere. It was incorporated into Tower 112 when
the SA&AP was absorbed into the T&NO. The structure
of Tower 2 was removed in the late 1920's when the crossing was
removed. The old SA&AP depot at the corner of S. Flores and
S. Alamo was not removed until 1939."
Above: This annotated index map to the 1904 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of San Antonio shows the
crossing of the
SP and SA&AP railroads
in south San Antonio, site of Tower 2. Further west, the location of
Tower 105 is also noted.
More detailed Sanborn maps from
1912 show that the SA&AP had a yard and roundhouse immediately south of this
junction.
The crossing was revised significantly in the late 1920s by removal of the
SA&AP track that crossed the SP. In
its place,
a curved connection from the SA&AP
yard to the SP main line was built, a track that remains in place today,
visible
in the lower left quadrant of the satellite image below. Removing the
crossing would have severed the northern extension
of
the SA&AP track into
downtown and beyond, but a new connection to these tracks had been built by the SAB&T from the SP main
at Tower 112.
Above: This annotated 1926 track chart from
the
T&NO Archives shows the location of Tower 2, apparently still standing
but no longer in service. The
MKT/GH&SA crossing over the San Antonio River was controlled by Tower 112 off
the diagram to the right.
Below: This Google Earth satellite map shows the area formerly occupied by Tower 2. The long
diagonal line of railcars
is on the SAB&T right of way. The smaller strand of railcars in the upper left
quadrant of the photo
running almost due north/south is probably on the original SAAP right of way.
This ROW connected
with the curved track in the lower quadrant. Tower 2 was located where this ROW
crossed the east/west
SP main line which is visible across and just below the center of the photo.
Towers 105,
109 and 112 were
located in south San Antonio near Tower 2. Tower 121,
was also located in San Antonio,
on the northeast side of town.
